" how much truth there was in what Harker said."
As you have shown over and over again by exposing all the fakes
He was bound to be proven right to those who never wanted there to be a people's music, of course

"It was written by Thomas Lanfiere"
I don't doubt that fro one minute Brian - the point I have always made is that our folk songs have cover most aspects of human experience for probably as far back in time as you care to go, the problems of drink being only one of these
There are many songs on the same theme as 'Rover' - we recorded one similar to 'Rover' made by travellers, probably in the 1960s - that than "moralising" they were describing a major problem among Travellers, and among the settled rural and urban poor
The use the state made of cheap gin in keeping the urbal poor in their place made the names of artists like Hogarth and Gustave Dore
That poet and proselytizers took up the themes only illustrates the difficulty of pinning these songs down to a time, place and composer
The somewhat moving and diverse treatment of this particular song by the Usher Family just underlines how they often strike home as 'real'
Jim Carroll